The statue now stands in the court of the Doge's ducal palace, thus inscribed: "To Francesco Maria I., Duke of Urbino, leader of the armies of this Republic; erected at Pesaro, and recommended to the affectionate care of Venice by Francesco Maria II., when bereaved of progeny." The original inscription ran thus: "To Francesco Maria, an eminent general, leader of the armies of the holy Romish Church, the Florentine republic, the Venetian state, and the princes of the League against the Turks, and of his own troops; the conqueror, subduer, and sustainer of potentates at home and abroad; his grandson, Duke Francesco Maria II. had this erected."
[CHAPTER LV]
Of the manufacture of majolica in the Duchy of Urbino.
THE influence of beauty upon arts usually considered as mechanical, and the exercise of creative talent upon substances of a common or trifling character, are equally proofs of a pervading refinement. It was accordingly a striking feature of Italy in her golden days, that nearly every sort of handiwork felt that influence, and in its turn served to maintain public taste at an elevated standard. To uncultivated or unobservant minds it may seem ridiculous to appreciate the state of high art in a country from the forms of culinary utensils, the colouring of plates, or the carving of a peach-stone; yet the elegance of Etruscan civilisation is nowhere more manifest than in household bronzes; the majolica of Urbino has preserved the designs and the feeling of Raffaele; the genius of Cellini did not spurn the most homely materials. The architects of the Revival were often sculptors; its engineers constructed clocks; while painters then exercised the crafts of jewellery and wood-gilding, or lent their pencils to beautify the potter's handiwork. Our undertaking would accordingly be incomplete without some notice of majolica, or decorative pottery, which under the patronage of her princes brought fame and wealth to the duchy of Urbino.[238]
The earliest work on the ceramic art is that of Giambattista Passeri of Pesaro, who was born about a hundred and fifty years since, and whose inquiries into geology and antiquities attracted him to a subject cognate to them both. While studying the fossils of Central Italy, the transition was not difficult to their fictile products; and after vainly endeavouring to methodise the pottery of Etruria and Magna Grecia, he tried the same good office with better success upon the majolica of his native province.[239] Nor is his theme of so narrow an interest as might on a superficial view be supposed. The existence of pottery has frequently proved a valuable aid to historical research; and even now our surest test of Etruscan refinement is supplied by the painted vases exhumed from the sepulchres of an almost forgotten race.[240] It is not, however, important merely as affording landmarks useful in tracing the civilisation of nations; for, by combining taste with ingenuity, it gives to materials the most ordinary and almost fabulous value, thereby constituting one of the notable triumphs of mind over matter, and largely promoting the advance of intellectual culture. Even in early stages of national improvement, the plastic art, after contributing to the necessities of life, has often been the first to inspire elegance or embody true principles of form and afterwards of colour. Dealing with a substance readily found and easily manipulated, wherein nature might be imitated or fancy developed, it was the precursor of sculpture, the patron of painting, and the handmaid of architecture.
